Saturday, December 05, 2009

AFP reports that the Iraqi Parliament adjourned today because they did not have a quorum despite the session being called by President Jalal Talabani. The Parliament 'hopes' to meet tomorrow and address the elections. Of course, they've been 'hoping' that for some time. In fact, remember November 27th when we were being told a compromise had been agreed to? Only it hadn't been agreed to, had it? No.

In addition Issa reports another attack on the US military base in Basra, this time with rockets. This would be the base whose barrier walls collapsed last Saturday and the US military continues to insist the collapse was due to rain.

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad bombing which claimed 1 life and left six people injured, a Baghdad sticky bombing which claimed 1 life and left two people injured, a Mosul bombing which left a child injured and 1 Tirkrit suicide bomber who took his own life and claimed the lives of 1 "commander of the anti-riot force in Tikrit" and 3 of his bodyguards with fifteen other people injured. Sabah al-Bzee, Michael Christie and Angus MacSwan (Reuters) report that the commander in Tikrit was Lt Col Ahmed Subhi al-Fahal who had been shopping when he was attacked. Ernesto Londono and Muhanad Saif (Washington Post) explain, "The bomber ran toward Lt. Col. Ahmed al-Fahal, who heads the city's anti-terrorism and anti-riot force, as he was walking in a crowded market, according to Lt. Ibrahim al-Duir, a police spokesman in Tikrit."

The death of Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Subhi al-Fahal, one of the top anti-terror chiefs in central Iraq, is being celebrated by insurgents across Iraq, and crowed about on Iraqi al-Qaeda affiliated web sites.Fahal was an outspoken terror opponent, and rejected government efforts to reform militants, suggesting that only killing them en masse could pacify the region.

al-Fahal may have been targeted for collaborating with the US. The same may have happened to the US-backed Sardar Abdulqadir today. There's no proof that it did and I'm not saying that was the case for either. But it's something to watch to see if a pattern is emerging.

Britain committed a large land force to the invasion of Iraq in an attempt to buy influence with the United States, the official inquiry into the war has been told.Lieutenant General Sir Anthony Pigott, who was deputy chief of the defence staff responsible for commitments, said that by taking on a major military role the UK was able to show the Americans that it was a "serious player". After Tony Blair's meeting with George Bush at the president's Texas ranch in April 2002, Pigott said he set up a small team to look at the options for military action against Iraq.

Brendon Abbott (Daily Star) reports, "SIX doctors are taking legal action to demand the ­inquest into the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly be re-opened." David Kelly was the source for many press reports including Andrew Gilligan's for the BBC that the Iraq intel had been "sexed up." David Kelly died July 17, 2003. Simon Alford (Times of London) identifies the six doctors: "Trauma surgeon David Halpin, epidemiologist Andrew Rouse, surgeon Martin Birnstingl, radiologist Stephen Frost, Chris Burns-Cox, who specialises in internal general medicine, and Michael Powers QC, a former assistant coroner, have instructed solicitors and aim to approach the Attorney General Baroness Scotland to get the case before the High Court. " Alex Watts (Sky News -- link has text and video) explains, "Lord Hutton concluded he bled to death as a result of a cut to his wrist and an overdose of painkillers. But Michael Powers QC, an expert in coroners' law, said the cut would not have caused him to bleed to death, and there was only a normal dose of co-proxamol in his body. He said that for a coroner to reach a verdict of suicide there must be evidence 'beyond reasonable doubt' that they intended to kill themselves. Dr Powers added: 'Suicide cannot be presumed, it has to be proven'." Andrew Alderson (Telegraph of London) adds:

The revelation of the move for a new inquest is embarrassing for the Government, particularly as it comes just two weeks into the inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot which is examining Britain's role in the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. The doctors are applying to the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland for permission to go to the High Court for a new inquest, or the resumption of the previous inquest.Their case rests on section 13 of the 1988 Coroners Act, which allows the High Court to order a new inquest, or to resume a previous inquest, in "special cases", including cases where "it is necessary or desirable in the interests of justice".Unusually, no coroner's inquest was ever held into Dr Kelly's death. Instead, the official verdict of suicide was provided by the Hutton Inquiry, commissioned by Tony Blair, the then-Prime Minister.

On another topic, if you're not a member of this community, you can use the public e-mail account to try to get something highlighted but you need to remember a few things. First off, I didn't ask you to e-mail and I don't owe you a thing. It's not my obligation to reply to your unsolicited e-mail. And it's not my obligation to note your event, cause, article or what have you. I might note it, I might not.

If I think it's a waste of time, I'm not going to bother noting it. I may think it's a waste of time for any number of reasons. For example, offline, I know people. It's saved my ass and made me a lot of money repeatedly. So I can walk out in front of a crowd and know the mood in the room before I've stopped walking. I know what to do and how to do it and where to take it.

So if you're writing an article and you want it highlighted here and I think it's nonsense, I'm not highlighting it.

And let me explain it to you real damn slow because you seem to have comprehension issues.

You want to protest war toys? Fine. I don't have a problem with that. Years ago, I risked a failing grade in a poli sci class because the three week exercise was a war game and I do not believe we treat war as a game. So I stood my beliefs and refused to participate in something that was a healthy chunk of the grade. I went to the professor and explained why I couldn't participate and why I wouldn't be participating (even when threatened with a failing grade).

Where in your war toys article do you ever explain what's wrong with war toys?

Answer: You don't.

You're not hitting on this issue (until now) and no one else is. But you think that just saying 'War toys are bad' is enough to explain your position?

So you go to a chain store and you protest war toys (protest for reasons never given in your article) and the chain store is selected because it sells war toys.

Repeating, you've never explained why war toys are wrong in your article. Now you make it even worse because some people reading your article might be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and support your cause. But you're ending your article praising the toy store for being nice to you.

First question: Is it all about you? Is all about how you're treated?

More important question: What is the point of your article?

Joe/Jo is someone who's never thought about war toys before, can't figure out why you're opposed to them, but willing to boycott them and stores that sell them for the cause . . . up until you're saying My Toys is a great store and the people are so wonderful and good to you.

Anyone on the fence about supporting your action (as undefined as your reasoning) just decided not to because you're raving over the toy store. They're such good people! So the person on the fence now has their out: "I can still shop there, I can even buy war toys, because the people are such 'good people'."

I have no idea where you learned activism but your article is weak and highly ineffective. You never establish why war toys are wrong. You never make a clear call for action. Readers can infer you're asking them not to buy war toys and to boycott stores that sell them; however, at the end of the article you're praising the store that sells them and it's 'wonderful' employees.

Your article is self-defeating.

It's confusing and it's not going to persuade or speak to anyone except someone already opposed to war toys and already refusing to purchase them. You've reached no one but you've self-stroked and maybe that was the entire point of your stupid, stupid article.

But you are the problem and you need to realize that before you write another word. You and your refusal to reach out beyond your own echo chamber are the problem.

You've written an article you think advocates for something. It does no such thing. It has no call to action and it offers no reasons for taking any stance. It exists solely to say: "Look how special I am!"

Well give yourself a gold star but stop pretending you reached anyone or you got a message out. All you did was waste your own time and the time of anyone who read it.

People who style themselves as activist and leaders better start grasping that movement building is not a vanity move.

And with this article specifically: If it's wrong to purchase war toys, then it's wrong to sell them. If it's wrong to sell them, there's no need for you to slobber over the store and the employees in the last paragraphs of your article.

This writer, no surprise, was a Barack supporter who deluded themselves. Now that the bloom is off the rose and the toast has gone flat, this Barry O groupie can't call out Barack. Reading this dopey war toys article, it became obvious that this group of people has no idea (a) how to oppose anything or (b) the realities of most people's lives.

On (b), we're all busy. That includes me. We wish we could do more and when we consider things we might add to our overloaded schedules, we're looking for any reaso to say no so if, in your 'advocacy' article, you're providing us with an out ('wonderful store! wonderful employees!') then we're going to grab it.

On (a), if you're opposed to something, you're opposed to it. If you're slobbering over what you're 'opposed' to, you really aren't opposed to it -- whether "it" is war toys, Barack's escalation or continuation of wars or what have you.

It's weak ass and it's the sort of crap we've grown to expect from Barbie Lee and Denny Kucinich. The switchboards of Congress didn't light up this week after Barry's speech. Why is that?

It's because instead of using every ounce of our being to call out the War Hawk, too many people wasted everyone's time with a bunch of slobber (and lies -- anyone calling Barry O intelligent wasn't paying attention during that awful speech which he had repeated trouble reading from the teleprompters).

You can't sort of be opposed to rape. You either are or you're not. And if you are opposed, you don't waste forever telling people how 'elequent' and 'smart' your rapist was.

By the same token you don't waste your time praising a War Hawk. The problem today isn't the people, it's what passes for 'leaders' -- and that especially includes the freak shows from NYC who have still not learned that's there's a whole world far beyond the routes of the MTA.

Friday, December 04, 2009

Friday, November 4, 2009. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, the Iraq Inquiry continues in London and we learn that the US rules England -- long live Queen Barack apparently, NPR finds time to advance war with Judith Miller like claims while refusing to cover Iraq, and more.

Starting with NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, the second hour where the panelists are Abderrahim Foukara (Al Jazeera), James Kitfield (National Journal) and Barbara Slavin (Washington Times) which was a wealth of stupidity and lies. So many lies, so little time. Let's start with Barbara.

Barbara, grab your passport and, yes, Annie Grab Your Gun, and get your ass over there. Over where? Where ever it is from one moment to another that Barbra 'knows' Osama bin Laden is. Take your ass, take your gun and get the hell over there, Big Girl. Reality, Barbara Slavin doesn't know where Osama bin Laden is -- a point Diane Rehm should have made -- but it isn't it interesting that Barbara's claims support further war? And isn't that really the point of your claims, Barbara? You really want to be the next Judy Miller? Really? And what about you, Diane? You going to keep letting guests claim to know where Osama is and use that 'knowledge' to launch a verbal attack on a country? You going to do that? And delude yourself that you've informed the public? How very, very sad.

James Kitfield, I have heard repeatedly how I hurt your feelings when I pointed out that you needed to learn speak. Well boo-hoo cry baby. This time you actually finished a few sentences. But maybe you should return to your stammering half-sentences? You don't know what the hell you're talking about as usual. There's reality and then there's James Kitfield's reality. The paying off Sunnis (Sahwa, the "Awakenings," the "Sons Of Iraq") was not about getting people "off the fence." That's a bold face and ignorant lie. Then-US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and then-top US Commander in Iraq General David Petreaus testified publicly to Congress in April 2008. Where the hell were you, Kitty? What did they say? They said the US paid the Sahwa so that they would stop attacking American military equipment and US service members (they put the emphasis on military equipment in their testimony to the House and Senate). People who are attacking the US military equipment and US service member are not "on the fence." They have made a choice. You can agree with the choice or disagree with it but they are not "on the fence." Try knowing something before you open your mouth.

It was the third Friday show where Iraq was not addressed (in fairness, last Friday was a canned special and not the roundtable). Diane will claim otherwise. No, Iraq popped up as a 'historical' to compare Afghanistan to. Iraq itself was never discussed. Except for the last thirty seconds when Abderrahim Foukara was supposed to provide an 'update' -- in 30 seconds. As he spoke vaguely of whether "elections are going to happen or not" the audience was likely confused if Diane Rehm's show is their primary news source.

Diane Rehm listeners who hear only her show have no idea what's happened for two weeks now in Iraq. And when James Kitty Litter and others are lying about 'success' in Iraq, it damn well matters.

Diane and her guests need to grasp FAILED STATE is the only term for Iraq. FAILED STATE. Now Diane's listeners would know that if they knew there were not going to be January elections. But that topic has NEVER been addressed and the final 30 seconds Diane tossed to Abderrahim Foukara were confusing at best as he attempted to sum up the problems and, honestly, didn't do a very good job. But, in fairness to him, you can't in thirty seconds. You can't update her audience in thirty seconds. The last time The Diane Rehm Show discussed Iraq (a discussion is more than 30 seconds) -- FOUR FRIDAYS AGO -- the listeners were told that elections were a go. What were they told. Let's drop back to the November 13th snapshot for a reminder of what listeners of Diane's show were told:

Susan Page: Roy Gutman, I know that you were reporting from Iraq last month. This week we hear that Iraq's Parliament finally has approved a law for its election in January. There had been a kind of stalemate before that.

Roy Gutman: Well there had been and it was a very damaging stalemate. If they hadn't approved the law by this point then you begin to have to predict the country going downhill rather quickly. Uhm, had they approved it a month ago, you could have said Iraq is almost heading towards a normalcy despite all of the violence. This kind of muddled middle that took a long time to decide actually is nevertheless huge progress. This election, uh, is in a way is going to create a new Parliament. There will be what they call open lists -- every parliamentarian or every person running for a seat uh will be named before the elections so it's possible for people to find out who they are and rather they have dual citizenship. You know I heard while I was there that as many as 70% of the Iraqi -- of the current Iraqi Parliament has dual citizenship. Many of them Iranian-Iraqi dual citizenship. So that-that part will end and it looks like -- they have an independent election commission, they run elections that I think, in comparison with Afghanistan, certainly in comparison with Iran, are going to look good, very clean. It's possible that this election could make a real big difference.

Is that possible? Not currently. There will be NO January elections. Diane's audience still doesn't know that, even after the 30 second update today. But there will be NO January elections. None. That's all fallen apart. Iraq is a FAILED STATE. It may hold elections at the end of Februrary, it may do it in March. It may do it later. But the reality is these elections were supposed to be held in December, mid-year Nouri kicked them back to January and the US wasn't alarmed by that. The Parliament and Nouri are legally no longer in office February 1st. By the Constitution, their terms are over. But they will remain in office, in violation of the Constitution, because they couldn't get it together to meet their Constitutionally mandated deadline. That's reality. It makes Iraq -- forget being ranked the second most corrupt state currently -- a FAILED STATE. When you can't follow your own Constitution for elections, when you can't meet a simple election deadline, you are a FAILED STATE.

And when your show tells listeners that Iraq elections are a go four Fridays ago and then they aren't a go, you do a damn update. In four weeks, you've got more than enough time to do an update. If you don't make the time for it, that's telling something about you and what passes for journalistic standards on your program.

FAILED STATE. The only term for it and though Diane Rehm avoids it, the US State Dept is in the midst of a major spin operation. Tariq al-Hashemi vetoed the law that Roy Gutman was discussing above. As one of the three members of the presidency council (he's one of the country's two vice presidents), he has that right (not explained in the 30 seconds on Diane's show today). The response to the veto from Parliament (not touched on at all) was to offer a counter-proposal which stripped seats from Sunnis and gave them to Kurds and a few of Iraq's minority population (ethnic and relegious). al-Hashemi is not pleased, nor are Sunnis. At present, the UN and Iraq's independent election commission (also not discussed on Diane's show today) say elections might be able to happen at the end of February or the start of March if Iraq can get a law in place.

Yesterday, the US State Dept's Rachel Schneller contributed "Avoiding Elections At Any Cost" at the Council of/on/for Foreign Relations. In this piece of spin, Schneller tries to stamp Happy Faces all over the disarray:

But the derailing of the election law may not be as bad as it sounds. The version approved by the governing council actually could have triggered greater instability in Iraq. Not only could corruption and fraud call the results and a new Iraqi government into question--even if Iraqi elections are free, fair, and uncontested--the new election law could lead to troubling divisions over oil revenues. The law has created conditions for even greater Kurdish control over Kirkuk and oil resources in northern Iraq. Other oil-rich regions of Iraq, such as the largely Shia south, will also have a basis to agitate for oil revenues to flow to regional governments. With the Iraqi central government still relying on oil for more than 90 percent of its national budget, the long-term viability of the country is called into question even if elections signal short-term success.The Sunni minority in Iraq, facing ever more desperate political and economic conditions in Iraq, is likely to resort to increasingly desperate measures to ensure survival as they face another round of elections where they could lose further seats in parliament.

Schneller calls for the US to stop pressing Iraq to put through an Iraq law. Schneller calls for? A US State Dept employee calls for the US to stop doing something?

Are you laughing? How stupid do they think everyone is? The State Dept knows they have no power on this issue (Iraqi MPs tried to block US Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill from the Parliament in November) but they need to spin it and along comes Rachel Schneller to 'advocate' for the US not to 'pressure' when, in fact, the US has no power to pressure on this issue as has been repeatedly demonstrated in the last weeks.

Is it a good thing, as Schneller argues in her spin, that the election law has not yet gone through? If this were October, it might be. But this is December. And Iraqi elections are Constitutionally mandated to take place in January. That's not blaming al-Hashemi for any of this. He has the right to veto and he used that right and did so, according to his public stated remarks, for valid reasons: Concerns that Iraq's refugee community was being under-represented. He did what he did and he's stated why he did it. But to spin this, as the State Dept is attempting, as a good thing is a HUGE STRETCH to the point that the truth just broke apart.

FAILED STATE. Iraq's installed government always knew that elections had to take place no later than January. That's why they were supposed to take place in December. After the elections take place, it will take weeks for the ballots to be counted and weeks for process to go through -- as has happened with every election held in Iraq since the start of the 2003 war. This is known. It is known that the Parliament and the Prime Minister's term expires at the end of January 2010. Is known and was known. And yet the Constitution is going to be 'bent' (thwarted) and al-Maliki will get to serve additional days. How many? Who knows. But everytime you treat your highest law of the land as something you can ignore, you set a dangerous precedent.

It is a FAILED STATE and the State Dept needs to stop embarrasing itself by sending Rachel Schneller out to spin it. There is no way to spin the Constitutional crisis -- that's what it is -- that Iraq's currently going through. That's true if Iraq's passes a law tomorrow. They are in a Constitutional crisis. They have disregarded their Constitution. That's the reality.

Reality is also that an Iraq Inquiry continues in London and reality is that Diane Rehm listeners don't know that because the show never tells them. Despite all the revelations, Diane's show has ignored the inquiry. From today's Free Speech Radio News:

Dorian Merina: The British government continues its inquiry into its role in the Iraq War. The inquiry, which began last week, showed that senior diplomats had doubts about the legality of the war. This week, Tony Blair's former foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning testified. Panel members asked about the controversial Crawford Ranch meeting, during which some speculate former US President George W. Bush convinced Blair to support an invasion of Iraq regardless of whether weapons of mass destruction were discovered. FSRN'S George Lavender reports.

George Lavender: The five person commitee of inquiry, selected by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is chaired by Sir John Chilcot, a career civil servant.

John Chilcot: My colleagues and I come to this task with open minds. We are apolitical. We are independent of any political party. And we ought to examine and rely on the evidence.

George Lavender: Despite assurances that the inquiry is impartial, the committee includes prominent supporters of the war. Among them Sir Lawrence Friedman, a former foreign policy advisor to Tony Blair. Nadji Mahmoud is an Iraqi political activists in the south of the country.

Nadja Mahmoud: I watched the news on Iraqi TV channel sattelite it's an inquiry that comes from the establishment, it's not outsiders that want to do this inquiry. Iraqi people don't put a lot of of hope on the results.

[. . .]

George Lavender: In a small room near the Houses of Parliament the panel heard evidence last week from senrior government officials and diplomats that regime change in Iraq was supported by many in Washington even before 2001.

Christopher Meyer: There is a more of a continuum here with previous administrations before George W. then maybe the Democratic and Republican party would be willing to admit.

George Lavender: Former Ambassador to the United States, Christopher Meyer, testified on the third day of the hearings.

Christopher Meyer: So sometimes people say to me, well, it was the nutiers, the right-wingers, the neocons who invented regime change. Absolutely wrong.

George Lavender: The panel asked Meyer when the British governement became committeed to the policy of regime change? He speculated that Tony Blair and George W. Bush reached an agreement on taking that action almost a year before the war started.

Christopher Meyer: To this day, I'm not exactly clear what degree of convergence was, if you like, signed in blood at-at the Crawford Ranch.

George Lavender: For many antiwar activists the inquiry lacks credibility. Witnesses may be offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony and are not under oath. In setting up the inquiry, Gordon Brown also made it clear it would not apportion blame. For many Iraqis, the inquiry is inconsequential. Again, Nadja Mahmoud.

Nadja Mahmoud: I think what the Iraqi people are really concerned about is not what the Iraq Inquiry is going to find out. They are really concerned about their daily life, about security, about jobs. It is chaos here, it is a mess here and people really care about these things.

George Lavender: Violence has increased in the country in advance of government elections last month [October] more than 155 people were killed in two car bombings in Baghdad in the deadliest attack since 2007. The panel will also hear from both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. It's expected to publish a final report at the end of 2010. George Lavender, FSRN, London.

Staying with the inquiry, which heard from British Maj Gen David Wilson, from Dominic Asquith and from Lt Gen Anthony Pigott today. Click here for video and transcript options.

Maj Gen David Wilson testified today about being at the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood at the start of the Afghanistan War and serving "as a conduit for communication between the operational level heaquarters, Central Command, commanded by General Tommy fRanks, and the permanent headquarters at Northwood, a conduit for information" on Afghanistan. He stated he was kept in the dark and "not made aware" of any plans on Iraq.

Committee Member Martin Gilbert: When did this change? When did Iraq come within the argument?

Maj Gen David Wilson: It did change. It changed in the latter part of June of 2002 and it changed very suddenly from where I sat in Tampa. The change was signalled by what was then the draft planning order for Iraq, early stage work, being authorised to be sent to the Permanet Joint Headquarters and that is what happened. Soon thereafter, there was a high level team visit led by General Sir Anthony Pigott, which I was invited to join and he spoke to that this morning, when they closed in Washington and then came down to Tampa. So the first -- it is almost a defining moment this, in a way. This is when, not just we, the British, but also, I understand, the Australians, were made privy to the planning that had gone to that point by the US.

Committee Member Martin Gilbert: In addition to being made privy to the planning, at what point were you asked by the United States, what questions of the possibility of integrating British forces into the overall American plan, when did this become, if it did become, a question of discussion?

Maj Gen David Wilson: That comes later, and we can -- I will certainly speak to that, of course, and that takes us into the beginning of August, when we had -- when the United Kingdom had received an invitation from Central Command to attend the whole, as opposed to half, which is what we had done previously, of the two-day programme. This -- I can't remember exactly when the invitation went out, some time in July, and the -- after debate -- whatever discussion in London, I was instructed that -- I pulled a long straw, or the short straw, depending on your perspective, and I was going to step up as the representative and I was going to say words that were produced for me, helpfully, which I received the day before I was due to get on my feet.

Wilson went on to testify of things he learned later such as that US Gen Tommy Franks came up with "a commader's concept for military action in Iraq" at "the end of November 2001" and had done that at the request of the then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. There was a 1998 plan that Rumsfeld was not happy with because it called for a large number of US forces.

Maj Gen David Wilson: What General Franks determined very early, as I understand it, was that whatever he and the team at CentCom came up with, it needed to have three dimensions to it. It needed, if you like, a robust option; in other words, all the enablers fell into place within the AOR. The countries that were required provided the staging, the basing, the overflight, the three critical enablers that he needed to project force. So a robust option. Reduction option, as it would sound: they didn't all sign up; and then his worst case option was the unilateral 'go it alone'. He did see that was the worst case option.

Half-way into the testimony, an important question was raised.

Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: What I'm interested in is, as you are having these discussions, if I was an American planner, it could get a bit irritating after a while to say, "Well, hypothetically, this is the sort of thing the Brits might do." At some sense you would want to firm this up. How was that happening? Were we able to go a little bit beyond a hypothesis or was it, "This may well happen, although we can't actually confirm it at the moments"?

Maj Gen David Wilson: I understand your question. I said, in answer to an earlier question, that the Americans were pragmatic, accomodating and very flexible. I was never put on the spot, if I can put it as crudely as that. I was never brought in at any level and they said, "Look, what's going on?" They know what's going on, they knew what was going at that level because it was my job to make sure they did, that we were in a process, we were in permissions and authorities, and they knew very well indeed that no commitment could be made until the process moved forward.

That was a less than complete answer as anyone paying attention grasped. Minutes afterwards, he would explain, regarding the US hopes that the British might be able to provide support in northern Iraq, "As I mentioned to you, on 2 August I spoke to the northern option and I, under direction, floated the notion that if everything was to fall into place, there might be a tract or we might be . . ." He wasn't put on the spot because he was always providing that reassuring float. Matthew Taylor (Guardian) covers Lt Gen Anthony Pigott's testimony noting that he stated that "Britian committed a large land force to the invasion of Iraq in an attempt to buy influence with the United States."

Lt Gen Anthony Pigott: Well, you know the US/UK, Mil/Mil relationship, you would enhance that no end by offering this sort of option that eventually was selected. You would enahnce it no end, and that's a pretty important relationship politically -- I'm talkin gon the Mil side -- where we have enormous access and enormous say in a whole range of things, not just to do with Iraq, but with other things, because they know you are a serious player and they know you have got . . . I put that right up at the front of -- at the heart of the UK/US Mil/Mil relationship, required from a military perspective a -- hence it coming through from the military perspective, something meaty to do, and if there wasn't anything meaty, then we weren't really -- it was a long way to go to do nothing -- you know, meaty.

Commitee Member Roderic Lyne: So it was good for our standing, it was good for our relationship, but they didn't actually --

Committee Member Roderic Lyne: -- but they didn't actually pay attention to our advice on how these big issues should be handled in the campaign? They didn't put in enough boots on the ground, they didn't plan properly for the aftermath, as Lord Boyce told us yesterday, despite our advice to the contrary.

Back to Taylor who quotes the coldest comment by Pigott, "You buy that on your contribution and your willingness to put ‑ not just boots on the ground ‑ [but] people in danger." Lives were traded for influence, to be 'let in the game.' It's cold blooded and you got your tip off on that yesterday. We noted this exchange in yesterday's snapshot:

Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: Can you say something a bit more about this question of influence as a factor in British military planning? Because it is assumed that if we had just gone for the package 2, which would not have been a trivial thing, which would have been quite a substantial commitment by the UK, that that would not have brought influence? After all, the Australians didn't provide that much, but they seem to have got a certain amount of influence and kudos with the Americans from what they did. We're a different sort of power to the Australians, but is there a direct relationship between the size of force and the amount of influence?

Michael Boyce: I am not sure the Australians did have any influence. They certainly got a lot of kudos from the Americans and we were very grateful for their contribution. I don't think they were as heavily involved in the planning process as we were. Also -- although you might say the final outcome didn't indicate it -- we had quite a lot of influence with regards to what was called Phase 4, all the aftermath planning as well, as a result of the size of our contribution.

Freedman whines, "We did! We did! We did this! But the Australians didn't do anything! Why didn't we have more influence!!!!" That exchange was telling yesterday and it only became more so today. As Tony Blair's foreign advisor, Freedman's singing his own blues. He apparently isn't pleased with the arrangement he advised on -- the one that sent British soldiers into an illegal war so that the UK could get a closer to the US.

The third witness to appear revealed perhaps the most interesting lines today. Dominic Asquith was the director for Iraq at the Foreign Office from 2004 to 2006 before becoming ambassador to Baghdad during 2006 to 2007.

He said that inter-departmental co-ordination within the UK was good but that the funding given to the post-invasion effort in Iraq was not.

"The direction was that this was a high priority but we weren't being given the extra resources to deliver..... It was left to Whitehall departments to put the case to the Treasury for resources to cover this to which the answer was 'There are no resources'."

It's supposed to be an inquiry but there's not much sign of any inquiring going on. I have been studiously following reports of the current investigation into the Iraq war and have even seen bits of it on television and I have yet to read or see a single case of any of the five-strong panel asking a question of those giving evidence. One by one the civil servants and the army generals queue up to say their piece and that's about all there is to it.

The lack of probing questions ought not to surprise us given the composition of the panel, all of them with close links to the political establishment. One of them, our old friend Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, pictured, of King's College London, provided further evidence of this when during Tuesday's session he volunteered the information that he had "instigated" a pre-war seminar for Blair to discuss Iraq because, he said, "I was aware of misgivings among some specialists in Iraq about the direction of policy". He added that this was "my only direct engagement in Iraq policy making". We were not told how a professor of history came to be in a position to organise such a seminar for the Prime Minister, nor, for that matter, whether there might have been some indirect engagements subsequently on the part of Freedman.

This hitherto unreported seminar is further proof of Sir Lawrence's close links to Blair. We already know that he provided the bones of a speech Blair made in Chicago in 1999 justifying the military intervention in rogue states. Later, in a TV interview, Freedman spoke of the "rather noble criteria" which lay behind the illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

In a more scrupulous society than that in which we nowadays live there would be calls for Professor Freedman to resign from the inquiry.

While Peter Biles (BBC News) argues, "The Iraq inquiry has produced another week of compelling evidence. We are beginning to understand how and why Iraq ended up in such a parlous state after the 2003 invasion. A number of witnesses have pointed a finger of blame at the United States for the chaos that ensued." Biles go on to insist upon a coherent war plan being needed before the war started. A few snapshots back, I noted how a number of British government witnesses were hiding behind Condi Rice's skirt and, in some cases, distorting her. This week, they've moved on to Donald Rumsfeld. Now Conid and Rumsfeld need to be answerable for their actions, no question. But, help me out here, because I guess my history is rather loose.

As I understood it, the American Revolution was fought with the British so that what is now the United States would not be under British rule. As I understood it, that meant that Americans were free from British rule but I did not understand the American Revolution to mean that British was under American rule.

Did I miss that? Did I fail to grasp reality?

Point: This is embarrassing. British government officials and now military persons are testifying over and over about how they wish Donald had done this or Condi wanted that and blah, blah, blah. The US does not rule Great Britian. Tony Blair's government made its own decision to get into the Iraq War. There's no point in blaming the US for that and it is past time that the inquiry got serious and started correcting witnesses who want to push blame for decisions made by the British government off on the US government. Bush's administration was nothing but War Criminals. I don't deny it. But Tony Blair's a War Criminal as well and it's really interesting to watch all these War Criminals in England insist that the Holy Doofus Bush managed to outwit and enslave them. They have yet to take accountability for their own actions which led England into an illegal war.

In related news, Tim Shipman and David Jones (Daily Mirror) report, "Tony Blair and George Bush were orchestrating a witch-hunt against Saddam Hussein that ended with the Iraq War, according to a former UN weapons inspector. Hans Blix said the two leaders behaved like 17th century witchfinders in their willingness to oust the dictator." The Daily Mail notes the Iraq Inquiry has not called Blix to testify which is rather strange and adds, "Most alarmingly, Dr Blix reveals that, after he made a speech to the UN asking for more time to complete his work, he received a phone call from Mr Blair. The Americans had been deeply disappointed by Dr Blix's contribution, the Prime Minister said, in a clear attempt to bounce him into backing the war."

17 women among those set to die with fears government is 'playing politics'

Iraq is preparing to execute hundreds of prisoners, including 17 women, warned Amnesty International today, as it issued an 'urgent action' appeal to try to prevent the deaths.

The 900-plus prisoners have exhausted all their appeals and their death sentences are said to have been ratified by the Presidential Council, meaning that they could be executed at any time. Amnesty supporters are contacting Iraqi embassies around the world, including that in London, in a bid to stop the executions.

The condemned prisoners have been convicted of offences such as murder and kidnapping, but many are likely to have been sentenced after unfair trials. The 17 women are thought to include a group known to have been held on death row at the 5th section (al-Shu'ba al-Khamissa) of Baghdad's al-Kadhimiya Prison.

Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock said:

'This is a staggering number of people facing execution and the fact that the government may be playing politics over these cases is truly frightening.

'Wholesale use of the death penalty was one of the worst aspects of Saddam Hussein's regime and the present government should stop aping his behaviour.

'Instead of sending nearly a thousand people to a grisly death by hanging, the Iraqi authorities should halt all executions and impose an immediate death penalty moratorium.'

Iraqi media reports suggest that the Iraqi government is currently trying to present itself as 'tough' on crime ahead of national elections scheduled for January. Iraqi opposition politicians have expressed concern that executions may be carried out to give the ruling party a political advantage ahead of the elections, and there have been calls for the government to temporarily suspend all executions.

Amnesty is warning that Iraq's use of capital punishment is already spiralling. At least 120 people are known to have been executed in Iraq this year, greatly up on the 34 executions recorded during 2008.

Iraq is now one of the world's heaviest users of the death penalty. After the US-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority suspended the death penalty following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government in 2003, Iraq's subsequent reintroduction of capital punishment led to a rapid acceleration in death sentences and executions. Despite this, and contrary to some claims made by the Iraqi authorities, use of the death penalty has not seen a drop in crime levels in the country, with rises and falls in insurgency violence having no discernible relation to execution rates.

Turning to TV, NOW on PBS debuts its latest episode tonight on most PBS stations and this one examines:

As Congress hammers out legislation that will determine the future of health care in this country, NOW travels to the nation's heartland to see what reform could mean for the middle class. On Friday, December 4 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), NOW Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa meets two tight-knit Oklahoma families whose problems with private health insurance left them unable to get proper medical care -- and on the brink of financial ruin. One of those families - the O'Reillys -- grapples with the issue of how to cover needed respiratory therapy treatment for their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, who was denied coverage for what the insurance company labeled a "pre-existing condition.""People pretty frequently say, 'Oh, you know, my plan works great for me'," says Sophie's mother Natalie O'Reilly." And my answer to that is -- insurance works really well until you need it. Until you really, truly need it."

Washington Week also begins airing on many PBS stations tonight (and throughout the weekend, check local listings) and joining Gwen around the roundtable are Michael Duffy (Time), James Kitfield (National Journal) and Martha Raddatz (ABC News). Meanwhile Bonnie Erbe will sit down with Irene Natividad, Tara Setmayer and Wendy Wright to discuss the week's events on PBS' To The Contrary. Check local listings, on many stations, it begins airing tonight. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:

That's it. We'll try to grab Iraqi press issues next week along with other issues. Thank you to the Iraq Study Group at Trina's (put together sometime ago by Mike and his friends) who gave an hour tonight for me to go over the Iraq Inquiry and then thirty more minutes stating what they felt should be emphasized from that. There was a great deal to cover and without their help, I wouldn't have been able to narrow it down. Thank you.

As counterterrorism and counterinsurgency have emerged as a significant part of modern warfare, the report says, the U.S. military has expressed growing interest in using social scientific methods -- such as semi-structured and open-ended interviews, polling and surveys, text analysis, and participant-observation -- to develop a better understanding of the cultural landscapes in parts of the world where it is trying to get strategic footholds.
But the authors cringed at the notion of field researchers conducting "anthropology" for a program with such an ill-defined ethical framework. "When ethnographic investigation is determined by military missions, not subject to external review, where data collection occurs in the context of war, integrated into the goals of counterinsurgency, and in a potentially coercive environment -- all characteristic factors of the [Human Terrain System] concept and its application -- it can no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology," the association wrote in its report.
It was not the first time the controversial program has come up at the association's annual meeting. The association has spoken out against the Human Terrain System before, and its some of its members have cited it as an example of how military ties can corrupt scholarship.

As Patricia Cohen (New York Times) explains, "The panel concluded that the Pentagon program, called the Human Terrain System, has two conflicting goals: counterinsurgency and research. Collecting data in the context of war, where coercion and offensive tactics are always potentially present, 'can no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology' the report says."

But, yes, I will state here that the New York Times did cover the release of an important paper. Once upon a time, you could count on the paper to cover those things and much more. So congratulations to them for covering it and I mean that seriously. It is a public service and it is informative and what the press should be doing.

17 women among those set to die with fears government is 'playing politics'

Iraq is preparing to execute hundreds of prisoners, including 17 women, warned Amnesty International today, as it issued an 'urgent action' appeal to try to prevent the deaths.

The 900-plus prisoners have exhausted all their appeals and their death sentences are said to have been ratified by the Presidential Council, meaning that they could be executed at any time. Amnesty supporters are contacting Iraqi embassies around the world, including that in London, in a bid to stop the executions.

The condemned prisoners have been convicted of offences such as murder and kidnapping, but many are likely to have been sentenced after unfair trials. The 17 women are thought to include a group known to have been held on death row at the 5th section (al-Shu'ba al-Khamissa) of Baghdad's al-Kadhimiya Prison.

Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock said:

'This is a staggering number of people facing execution and the fact that the government may be playing politics over these cases is truly frightening.

'Wholesale use of the death penalty was one of the worst aspects of Saddam Hussein's regime and the present government should stop aping his behaviour.

'Instead of sending nearly a thousand people to a grisly death by hanging, the Iraqi authorities should halt all executions and impose an immediate death penalty moratorium.'

Iraqi media reports suggest that the Iraqi government is currently trying to present itself as 'tough' on crime ahead of national elections scheduled for January. Iraqi opposition politicians have expressed concern that executions may be carried out to give the ruling party a political advantage ahead of the elections, and there have been calls for the government to temporarily suspend all executions.

Amnesty is warning that Iraq's use of capital punishment is already spiralling. At least 120 people are known to have been executed in Iraq this year, greatly up on the 34 executions recorded during 2008.

Iraq is now one of the world's heaviest users of the death penalty. After the US-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority suspended the death penalty following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government in 2003, Iraq's subsequent reintroduction of capital punishment led to a rapid acceleration in death sentences and executions. Despite this, and contrary to some claims made by the Iraqi authorities, use of the death penalty has not seen a drop in crime levels in the country, with rises and falls in insurgency violence having no discernible relation to execution rates.

Lt Gen Sir Anthony Pigott, who was deputy chief of the defence staff (commitments), said that by taking on a ''meaty'' role and putting people "in danger" the UK was able to show the Americans that it was a ''serious player''.
Following Tony Blair's meeting with George Bush at the president's Texas ranch in April 2002, Gen Pigott said he set up a small team to look at the options for military action against Iraq.

You can file the above remarks by Pigott with yesterday's catty remarks made during the hearing. They are related.

Turning to TV, NOW on PBS debuts its latest episode tonight on most PBS stations and this one examines:

As Congress hammers out legislation that will determine the future of health care in this country, NOW travels to the nation's heartland to see what reform could mean for the middle class. On Friday, December 4 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), NOW Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa meets two tight-knit Oklahoma families whose problems with private health insurance left them unable to get proper medical care -- and on the brink of financial ruin. One of those families - the O'Reillys -- grapples with the issue of how to cover needed respiratory therapy treatment for their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, who was denied coverage for what the insurance company labeled a "pre-existing condition.""People pretty frequently say, 'Oh, you know, my plan works great for me'," says Sophie's mother Natalie O'Reilly." And my answer to that is -- insurance works really well until you need it. Until you really, truly need it."

Washington Week also begins airing on many PBS stations tonight (and throughout the weekend, check local listings) and joining Gwen around the roundtable are Michael Duffy (Time), James Kitfield (National Journal) and Martha Raddatz (ABC News). Meanwhile Bonnie Erbe will sit down with Irene Natividad, Tara Setmayer and Wendy Wright to discuss the week's events on PBS' To The Contrary. Check local listings, on many stations, it begins airing tonight. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:

Above "[here]" should be the video link. Their link's not working currently. (Which is why the copy and past didn't result in "Watch Video" being a link on the first story.)
Radio notes, today on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show (begins airing on most NPR stations live at 10:00 am EST and begins streaming online at the same time). The first hour, domestic issues, the panelists are Matthew Continetti (Weekly Standard), David Corn the Corn Princess (Mother Jones) and Melinda Henneberger (Polititcs Daily). That hour's already on (I'm dragging this morning -- and humming Barbra Streisand's "Coming In And Out Of Your Life"). The second hour, international, the panelists are Abderrahim Foukara (Al Jazeera), James Kitfield (National Journal) and Barbara Slavin (Washington Times).

One month after Army Staff Sgt. Amy Seyboth Tirador died in Iraq, new details have emerged about her death but not enough to satisfy her mother, who is calling on elected officials to expedite a military investigation into how Tirador's life ended.The 29-year-old soldier from Colonie was shot in the back of the head while walking to her military intelligence job from her room on the Army's Camp Caldwell in Kirkush, her mother Colleen Murphy said Thursday.Murphy said a military agent with the Army's Criminal Investigation Command in Iraq told her Tuesday that her daughter was killed outdoors around 8 p.m. Nov. 4 while making the approximately 100-yard walk on the secure but unlit base in eastern Iraq.

Thomas E. Ricks cannot seem to stop disgracing himself these days and, earlier this week, he wrote another one of his sexist posts about how it's the older men who send the boys to die in Iraq and Afghanistan. The boys? Does Ricks really not know how many women have died serving in Iraq and Afghanistan? Even the article he linked to acknowledged that. But for Ricks it's all about the boys.

And his sexism and general and increasing stupidity that means someone like Murphy has to fight. Ricks was supposedly going to be writing at Foreign Policy about Iraq. He was supposedly going to keep a light on that war. Instead, he pimps counter-insurgency and blathers on endlessly about Afghanistan. Maybe once or twice a week, he'll write two to three sentences on Iraq and we're all supposed to be blown away.

Colleen Murphy's story could use some attention and it's only one of the many stories in need of real press coverage that would push to address the issues.

Other things in need of real press coverage. Senator Evan Bayh's bill for a federal registry for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who may have been exposed to toxins. Such a registry, like what now exists for Agent Orange, would be incredibly helpful to the veterans. Bayh introduced the bill. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee has had the bill since October. And done nothing. And has no hearings (not even mark-up hearings) scheduled this month.

The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee could get it off its lazy ass and send the bill to the floor and Pelosi could easily get it through the House. It's not a controversial bill and it's one that has broad support within Congress and outside of it. Which, pay attention, is really beneficial to incumbents. This is a no-brainer bill. It has wide support. Passing it improves the image of Congress at a time when the polling shows the public less than pleased with the Congress' performance. (The bill dies January 3, 2011, if not passed and thank you to a friend and Senate staffer for calling me to clarify that.)

But the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee has a chair who, while nice and caring, is really too old now to do the duties required to chair a committee. And while this bill sits stalled because there was no real leadership on that committee (Bayh does not serve on that committee), when the process has to start all over, someone better explain why people unable to hold regular hearings are chairing committees. Robert Byrd was relieved of his duties. Daniel Akak needs to step aside and let someone else chair the committee. I do not know a Committee, in the House or Senate, that has met less than the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee (this year or last). There are subcommittees which meet less, yes. But standing committees, full committees? No. If the chair is not up to running a committee, then he or she needs to step down.

And that while the US fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Pakistan) and while so many service members return wounded, for a veterans affiars committee to do so little is very troubling. The House has a Veterans Affairs Committee. They never stop meeting.

This week Iraq War veteran Lt Col Jim Gentry was buried. He died of cancer and that was likely due to his exposure to toxins (yes, KBR is connected, of course). He is one of the people whom the Congress heard from and realized there was a problem. Evan Bayh spoke highly of him in October, when he appeared before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. The federal registry would not just have benefitted Gentry, it was part of Gentry's and other veterans efforts to protect all who serve. And Gentry was buried on Tuesday and the needed bill is buried in a do-little committee where it may very will die. Bob Filner chairs the House Veterans Affairs Committee which has already held two hearings this week and can even tell you that they'll be exploring rural veterans' issues in January. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee? It has little direction and little focus. And an active chair might also do something about the vast number of members who skip hearings. With two to three hearings a month max, there's really no excuse for committee members not to even put in their token appearence on a hearing. But with the lack of leadership from the Chair, Dems on the Committee regularly miss the hearings.

I happen to like Daniel Akaka and think he's a wonderful person. But his running of this committee is not helping anyone and, I would argue, is hurting veterans. I have no business before the committee so I can say that. Many who appear before the committee and feel the same way can't. As for the press? They seem interested in many things but issues they could actually help on aren't among them.

And let's not just make it Big Media, let's call out Little Media as well. The Nation will serve as one solid example. You've got all that blather coming from The Notion and all their other blogs and nothing, nothing to show for it, nothing worth reading it. With two wars going on, seems like they could assign one of their bad writers to "veterans issues." Where at least once a week, they broke from their pressing topic of what they think Sarah Palin's just done and actually offered something that shined a light on a real need and actually benefitted someone. But that would be working and The Nation is as leaderless as the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

I hereby order all flags flown in the State of Montana lowered to half staff on Thursday morning, December 3rd, 2009 until sundown on Friday, December 4th, 2009 to honor the memory ofU.S. Army Private First Class Michael A. Rogers. Private First Class Rogers died on November 27th, 2009 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.Dated this 2nd day of December, 2009.Brian Schweitzer, Governor

"President Obama’s surge of 21,000 troops now engaged in combat in Afghanistan comes on top of the 60,000 we already had there," says Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law at Champaign."The Obama Administration simply ignored Section 4(a)(3) of the WPR when it announced the escalation," Boyle noted. "U.S. armed forces are in Afghanistan originally pursuant to WPR. Its requirement that the President get Congressional consent on substantial enlargement (of forces) was put there to deal with the kind of gradual escalation we saw in Viet Nam that eventually led to 550,000 troops being there," Boyle said."Clearly," Boyle added, "President (George W.) Bush never had authority from Security Council in the first place to invade Afghanistan, and the WPR requires that any enlargement of U.S. troops in a foreign nation be authorized by Congress."

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Released by an ethics commission at the American Anthropological Association meeting in Philadelphia, the "Final Report on The Army's Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program," looks at a controversial program embedding 5-person teams of social scientists with soldiers since 2005. Three HTS researchers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, adding to debate over the effort.

The above is from Dan Vergano's "Army anthropology program in Iraq criticized" (USA Today) while Yudhijit Bhattacharjee (Science Magazine) quotes the chair of the panel, Robert Albro, stating, "Human terrain teams in the field cannot in any reasonable sense of the word be carrying out anthropological field work." It should be the big story but rather it will be or not, I have no idea. We covered it in the snapshot today and that led to the usual counter-insurgency trash (including Monty herself using a sock puppet she seems unaware most people long ago grapsed was her) showing up at the public e-mail account to insist that (a) counter-insurgency is needed and (b) it saves lives.

What is that, b, what is that? "Lobotomy gets 'em home!" Is that what you're basing the science on? (In Frances, starring Jessica Lange, the doctors brag of their barbaric lobatomies and insist that these procedures "gets 'em home" and out of the institution.)

There are a lot of ways you can save lives -- if you prepared to act in an unethical and/or illegal manner. You can, for example, shoot every suspect dead. That might result in a drop in crime -- as long as you didn't count the murder of suspects as the crime it is.

There are no ethics in the world of counter-insurgency cheerleaders. You sort of, for example, picture Thomas E. Ricks rising off the nude, bound body of a gagged woman woman and saying, "I did you a favor." Extreme? I don't think so. But then I remember the past. And I remember how counter-insurgency was (rightly) seen in an earlier time. It is an attempt to colonize a people, it is a war against the native people. And they are misusing social sciences, they are degrading them and their behaviors are completely unethical. The fact that the bulk of them -- such as Ricks -- have no background or training in the social science is no excuse.

Counter-insurgency is supported by many fools because it "works." There is no proof that it works and, historically, any benefits it has had have been short-term ones. It violates ethical codes and that doesn't "work." Any time you have a field of study and you encourage and reward the violation of ethics, you're asking for future problems. An ethical code exists not as something to aspire to but as the bare minimum that all professional must maintain. When you attack the bare minimum, when you toss it out, you're opening the door for many other serious abuses to take place.

Let's not give the trash all the space. There were a number of e-mails from people who were just learning of counter-insurgency today and that's wonderful because that demonstrates that the counter-insurgency cheerleaders do not have the hold on the American people that they wish they did. For those wishing to find out more on the topic, David Price has written on this topic repeatedly and you can find more on the topic and on his work at the Network of Concerned Anthropologists. And that's just for starters.

Some noted that I mentioned Price's "Human Terrain Systems, Anthropologists and the War in Afghanistan" (CounterPunch) in an early morning entry today and wondered if I knew the panel was releasing their report today? Yes. I was on the phone with a friend who reminded me of that when I said something to the effect of, "I need to link to Price's piece." The reply was, "Well do it now, remember the study comes out today." And, by the way, you can also use that link, go to CounterPunch and search "David Price" and find other of his articles on this topic. (Or you can Google "David Price" and "CounterPunch" to find other articles.)

A visitor who has written repeatedly over the last three months asking about the snapshots wrote again and says someone answering his last e-mail said I'd probably write about the snapshots at some point on a Thursday night "but you still haven't." I don't know that I got the message. I may have. On Thursday nights, I'm just trying to type something up so I can go to sleep.

But I will cover it briefly and use today's snapshot as the reference. The snapshots are dictated. Often, they're dicated in one phone call, but not always. Today, as I left a hearing this morning, I dictated a lenthy section on that hearing. Some of it made it into the snapshot. Some didn't.

I'm dictating in one cell phone and speaking in another (often with other calls waiting on Kat or Ava or Wally's cell phone). The idea that I've got it in my head (the snapshot) when I start dictating is wrong. I'm counting on friends to tell me they saw this or their own outlet has that. And I'm including all of that and it goes very quickly stopping only if I'm confused or see a different angle than what's being offered. At which point, I'll say, "Stop. Walk me through this because I'm confused."

Now that may mean a friend at ___ has something domestic here in the US and I'll go ahead and dictate that then. The next call might be something in Iraq and I'll dictate that there. Near the end of the calls, the snapshot has shaped up into something on its own and it's time to reassemble it.

The hearing, for example, is now at the end. I said something to the effect of, "Drop the hearing after the last . . ." and I said take out this and that. Among the removed portions was the actual exchange which I'd dictated in full but we did not have room for it anymore. So it had to be dropped. If you read that section, you'll see one sentence I forgot to ask be pulled and you may think, "Wait this isn't opening the snapshot." It's not. Originally, the plan was for it to open the snapshot even though it had nothing to do with Iraq.

In that same section, there's a word that's the wrong tense or something. There are grammarians e-mailing on that tonight. I may have said the wrong word, the wrong word may have been heard, or I may have said, "That sentence with [. . .], pull out the section on [. . .] right in the middle." I'm not looking when I'm editing. So that can effect it as well. Some people I dictate to do spell checks. Some do not. I don't do a spell check on the morning entries when I type them up. It is what it is and I'm tired of being online. But even if I weren't tired -- and please understand, if I'm typing up an entry I'm juggling two or three phones trying to find out what's going on in Iraq as I write those entries -- I wouldn't do a spell check. It is what it is. There are many wonderful Goldie stories but my favorite Goldie Hawn story is when she's acting in Seems Like Old Times. She's finished playing Judy in Private Benjamin. But Goldie wasn't just the actress in that movie, she was also the producer. And while the film's done shooting, her job as producer continues. Some problem arises on Private Benjamin. She dictates a memo which is typed up and handed to her to sign on the set of Seems Like Old Times. She places it down on the table in front of her and signs it. Everyone laughs and she has no idea why until she sees the tomato sauce on the back of the memo. She sat it down on a plate of food. She looks at it, calculates the time it will take to type up another memo, shrugs, wipes off as much of the sauce as she can and sends the memo on to Warner Bros. I love Goldie anyway, she's a great person, but that's the reality of what you have to do if you're doing a number of things. It is what it is. Is it perfect? No. But I'm not perfect and neither is life. So we do as much as we can and we accept that everything will not be perfect.

Today, at the end of the snapshot, we have a ton of things I've been trying to work in all week. Some made it and had to be edited out because the snapshot was too long. But we got in as much as we could today and as much as we could stand. Could stand? It's pushing it if the e-mail is 90K. It works best at 80K. After it hits 90 or above, there's a chance it will not 'hit' this website when it's e-mailed to it. That's why there are sometimes two or three or more Iraq snapshots up here on one day. They didn't hit, so they were sent again. And all of those? They were in the right K size. But if it goes over X it won't hit.

Why is that a problem? If it's e-mailed, all the other community sites (which re-post the snapshot) can just copy and paste it in and not have to worry about spacing. If I dictate it and the person I'm dictating it to does a post in Blogger, the whole snapshot runs together, no paragraph breaks, no breaks at all. So that's why the snapshot is always done by e-mail. (It started out that way by accident because one friend wasn't comfortable with Blogger/Blogspot. So he would e-mail the snapshot. When we heard how much easier it was to just copy and paste, we just made the snapshot an e-mail.)

On corrections, they do not appear in the snapshot. They go into the first snapshot after I'm aware of a problem. Why? If I go in and correct it, I've messed it up. Meaning, anyone trying to copy and paste is not going to have the parargraph breaks and it's all going to run together when they try to paste it in at their site. So since it is dictated, we treat it like a radio show, meaning it's already out there. We can't take it back from your ears. But in the next one, we can note a correction if there needs to be one.

Do I not know that I missed ___ and/or ___ today/yesterday/last week/last month . . .? It's called a "snapshot." It's not the "Iraq Encylopedia." We miss many, many things because I miss many, many things. We also ignore some things because I don't think they're that important or as important as something else that's happening that day.

The last two weeks, I would've liked for us to have had time for the oil issue. But the Iraq Inquiry is going on in London and not getting real attention outside of the British press. So I can't walk away from that. There's another inquiry that's been going on that we've had to skip because there's just not time and space.

Today, along with cutting out the exchange from the US Congressional hearing, we had to cut out a lot of excerpts from the Iraq Inquiry that I wanted to include. We did not cut out the Australia section though it was considered for a cut. But we have a number of community members in Australia and Australia was mentioned for the first time, the remarks in the Inquiry were kind of catty and rude and we needed to include that catty and rude excerpt. But other parts had to be cut. The section on the American Anthropological Association's report was much, much longer as dictated but we had to cut that down as well. Some things that do get a few lines or even a paragraph, some topics, end up pulled due to the snapshot being too long.

What's the right size? I would like it no more than 50K and have repeatedly promised here that it would be that from now on because I don't want to spend the time on longer. And that's last for about a day or two and then someone's telling me on the phone, "Oh, you have to include ___. Do you know how long we worked on this report? You have to include ___." And I include it, and then there's another have to include, and then there's another. And pretty soon we're back up to 70K and then 80K and then 90K.

Some things that get cut pop up later. A hearing that I attended today might, might, be able to fit in tomorrow's snapshot. I doubt it though. (This hearing was on veterans.)

But there's always more than enough which goes to the vistor's original question of why do we do the snapshot. In 2006, we started it because it was asked for. And then I made the point that I didn't have time to do two different things that the community wanted and stated they needed to decide which they preferred and then that's what we'd do. They voted on the Iraq snapshot and they voted on it because Iraq was falling off the radar. It's continued to fall off the radar but so far I've never had a day where the problem was, "There's nothing to put in the snapshot today!" There's always more than enough.

About Me

We do not open attachments. Stop e-mailing them. Threats and abusive e-mail are not covered by any privacy rule. This isn't to the reporters at a certain paper (keep 'em coming, they are funny). This is for the likes of failed comics who think they can threaten via e-mails and then whine, "E-mails are supposed to be private." E-mail threats will be turned over to the FBI and they will be noted here with the names and anything I feel like quoting.
This also applies to anyone writing to complain about a friend of mine. That's not why the public account exists.